About Me

Researcher in the history of software engineering (2010–2013) with positions at:

Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics, University of Amsterdam

Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology

Guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (January 2014) and lecturer at Utrecht University (1 February 2014 – 31 August 2015).

Consultant in safety engineering (1 September 2015 - 31 August 2017).

Current positions: guest lecturer at KU Leuven in the history of computer science, post-doc researcher at Siegen University and member of the HaPoC Council (since 6 October 2017).

The incentive for this blog in my words:

Just as an extensive account of Einstein's ideas aids us in grasping the constituents of our universe, research of Dijkstra's numerous writings helps crystallize some of the most important ideas underlying our digital society.

M. Bullynck, E.G. Daylight, L. De Mol. Why Did Computer Science Make a Hero out of Turing? Communications of the ACM, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 37-39, March 2015. Draft paper available here. Official version here.

Using History to Make Software More Tangible. HaPoC Special Session at the 15th Congress on Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, Helsinki, 17 August 2015.

Towards a Dutch Perspective on the Beginnings of Machine-Independent Programming. One-hour lecture for the seminar "Interactions between logic, computer science and linguistics: history and philosophy. Organized by Liesbeth De Mol, University de Lille 3, UMR 8163 Savoirs, textes, langage, 22 April 2015.

From the Pluralistic Past to the Pluralistic Present in Programming. Monthly seminar on the Philosophy and History of Computing. Organized by Mael Pegny and Pierre Mounier-Kuhn in Paris, France, 15 January 2015.

With D. Nofre. The Absent Machine: The Making of Computer Science, 1955-1970. One-hour lecture for the Descartes Centre History of Science colloquium, Utrecht University, 16 December 2014.

The (non-)influence of Turing's abstract formal results on the development of computers & computer science. Two-hour lecture for the seminar `Foundations and Fundamental Concepts' at the Institute of Mathematics and Physics in Louvain-la-Neuve (Universite Catholique de Louvain), 3 February 2014.

E.G. Daylight. A short biography of Peter Naur, the 2005 Turing award winner. Written for the official ACM website on Turing award winners, May 2012. See http://amturing.acm.org/

E.G. Daylight. Turing's 1936 Paper and the Origins of Computer Programming — as experienced by E.W. Dijkstra. Presentation for the Summer School on "Oral History and Technological Memory: Challenges in Studying European Pasts," University of Turku, Finland, 14 August 2009.